


maybe someday

by blacksatinpointeshoes



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Crisis of Faith, Drunkenness, Gen, Hopeful Ending, I actually have no idea where it came from but we're gonna roll with it!, I just have a lot of feelings about this, Introspection, M/M, Not tagging Sasha but she is mentioned, post RQG 65
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2020-01-12 20:12:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18453797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blacksatinpointeshoes/pseuds/blacksatinpointeshoes
Summary: The right decision isn't always the easy decision. It usually isn't.But it's the decision Zolf made, and the one he'll have to deal with.





	maybe someday

**Author's Note:**

  * For [roswyrm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roswyrm/gifts).



> hello I'm one hundred percent beholden to rusty quill for like... everything ive written in the past month and a half so that's great. in this instance im actually beholden to @roswyrm who's fantastic. they're the best and I highly recommend that you read everything they've written!!
> 
> that said, please enjoy.

Zolf leaves the brewery and walks into a pub. The ale’s a bit more expensive, but his teammates  _ (ex-teammates,  _ says the acid voice in his head) aren’t in it, so there’s no one important around to watch him crumble. He’d been on the verge of tears walking out, removing Hamid’s arms from around his body with a calm he didn’t feel, knowing damn well it would be the last time he’d ever see him, but Zolf doesn’t feel like crying. This was a good decision, and he knows it. Zolf doesn’t cry after good decisions. 

He gets smashed instead. 

(To be fair, Zolf usually doesn’t drink himself into oblivion after good decisions either, but he feels like he deserves it. It’s that or crying, and crying means that he’ll have to face how desperately he still yearns for the connection he felt with Hamid and Sasha, and Zolf doesn’t have the tools to deal with that right now. So alcohol it is.)

Zolf hasn’t been drunk in a long time. He’s enjoyed a drink every now and then, sure, but to be so properly wasted that he sways when he stands? It’s been years. And he’s too spent to hide his motivations when he walks in, so everyone in the room knows that he’s the miserable drunk of the night, wasting away in a corner and glaring off sympathy. 

Someone asks if it’s been a bad breakup, but Zolf doesn’t understand, because they’re speaking Czech and Hamid isn’t around to translate. He’s so completely alone that even the language of tavern rowdiness flies over his head, unintelligible. It’s incomprehensible in English, too, but it’s at least familiar. 

The only familiar thing here is the alcohol, so Zolf drinks until he forgets why, until he’s on the verge of collapse and maybe poisoning, until he is more brandy than blood. Well, he never forgets why he’s at the pub, no matter how much he would like to and no matter how satisfying that sounds. The hurt just grows more vivid and distorted in equal measure, searing bright streaks of Hamid’s purple and green straight through his ears and into his skull and by the gods,  _ this  _ is why he left.

He left because he was no good for the team, because he was the weak link and always had been, because he’s dealing with loss like the coward he is, and because there’s no use in having a man incapable of keeping himself upright trying to lead. The group will be better for his absence. He knows it’s true. This was a good decision.

Zolf winds the cord of his dolphin symbol around his finger and clasps his hand around the holy driftwood, and he is close to sending Poseidon a prayer asking for help before he realises he’s expended all the divine favour he’ll ever get. The Navigator told Zolf that service to the church was about more than sacrifice of others, that he should focus on sacrificing  _ to  _ others, and now he knows that he has made the group better with his absence. He knows it’s true. It has to be. 

This was a good decision.

All the same, Zolf is crushed with regret, and he’s so completely hammered that the image of Hamid’s face wavers when he conjures it in his mind. Is he going to forget them all eventually? He wouldn’t mind forgetting Bertie, but - Sasha? Hamid? Will he reach for their memories one day and just be unable to find them? 

Eventually the pub closes, but it takes a good three or four minutes to get Zolf out because he still doesn’t speak Czech - and to be fair, even if he did, he’s most of the way to a blackout so nothing is processing. Once or twice he opens his mouth to ask Hamid what’s going on, because Hamid  _ should  _ be next to him, but he always remembers where he is before he can get any words out. 

One of the bartenders who speaks English helps Zolf to the streets, asking him where he’s staying, telling him that it’s late and dangerous and can they arrange a carriage? There’s been a bit of a delay recently, what with all the mechanical issues, but the staff tries to take care of their clientele, and while they’re sure Zolf can hold his liquor (which he’s doing remarkably well, even if he’ll have a moon-sized hangover in the morning) they’re just not sure if the situation is safe. 

It’s at the casual mention of the fact that  _ the whole world is fucked  _ that Zolf starts laughing. Hard. Hysterical. The bartender doesn’t seem to surprised (considering the line of work, sad drunks aren’t exactly foreign), just concerned, asking again where Zolf is staying and if he needs help getting there.

The truth is that Zolf isn’t staying anywhere because for some stupid reason he’d just assumed that he’d be back at the end of the day, where he belonged. 

He laughs for far too long, and it doesn’t make him feel at all better.

It’s fine. He didn’t expect it to.

Zolf just shakes his head when the bartender starts to ask again if he needs anything and walks down the street, mute, his legs carrying him with magic that Zolf doesn’t deserve. 

He knows that Poseidon probably saved his life that night, because he wakes up gods-know-where with less of a headache than he should have, and when he falls back asleep almost immediately he’s slammed into a dream jam-packed with water symbolism.

Great. 

“I’m sorry,” he calls to an open ocean, hating the way that his voice catches in his throat. Then he remembers himself and, on the sandy beach where he stands, sinks to one knee, head bowed, and offers a quiet, “Thank you.” 

The weirdest bit is that Zolf has never been sure if Poseidon liked him. He served his god, sure, but to stretch their relationship from faith into actual positivity was debatable. Poseidon isn’t subtle, but his emotions are unparseable, and Zolf wants to throw fistfuls of sand into the ocean like a child. He wants to scream and sob and ask what’s going on and he wants someone to listen, wants someone to tell him that it’ll be okay, that he’ll find a way to figure this out and maybe even go home in the end, and - 

And the sun brightens on the beach. The clouds part and the water calms, and though no murky humanoid figure approaches to present a wordless ultimatum, Zolf feels more connected to Poseidon than he ever has. (In the dream he can feel the sand beneath real toes on each leg. He has feeling in them, here, and they don’t feel vaguely cold, and when he stands, his centre of balance is in the right place for the first time in years.)

With nothing else to do, Zolf walks towards the ocean. An invisible string tugs him forward, inviting, attached right above his hips and pulling him along. It’s not malicious, but that presence wants Zolf in the water, so he goes.

“Listen, I -” He clears his throat. There’s no one to address so he speaks to the air. “I’m still not what you want, alright? I’m - I think I’ve proven that I’m a rubbish devotee, and - I mean, maybe I should just accept that, instead of acting as a representative of —of you, I guess. I’ve got a lot to sort out. I’m— I’ve been taking breaks from the things I care about.” He tries to smile but there’s a lump in his throat. 

“And I know it would mean losing… er. The legs. Again.” Zolf squares his shoulders and reminds himself that this is no time for crying. “But I didn’t— deserve that in the first place, so. Maybe when I do—when I’m able to serve better —you and them- then... maybe I can ask for things again. Once they’re earned.”

Zolf sits down at the shoreline and extends his legs into the water, waiting for a wave to sweep past and take back his mobility, because he doesn’t really have anything left to lose, right? “Or not. I know that’s not how gods work.” He ducks his head down as if Poseidon won’t be able to tell he’s crying that way - which he’s  _ not,  _ thank you, because that would mean he couldn’t handle himself. 

In the dream, Zolf runs a hand down his shin, which in real life has not been a part of his body in three years, and feels the skin there, and mourns it. “I’m not… trying to give gifts back,” he says awkwardly to the sky. “But I don’t— I don’t deserve them, I can’t  _ do _ anything with them, I—”

He stops speaking, then starts again, and then stops. Zolf is so close to collapsing that he can feel himself beginning to shake. So he shuts up. He shuts up and dips his legs into the sea and tries to let Poseidon know that he’ll be okay on his own, somehow. That he deserves it.

Zolf feels the sentiment rather than hears the words, as the sun warms the beach around him:  _ Do you truly believe that you deserve to be alone?  _

He wakes up at the riverside this time, not sprawled but placed gently beneath a bridge, and the water laps gently at his ankles. Zolf can still feel his legs. The watery ones, granted, but legs nonetheless and, you know, Poseidon isn’t one for subtlety. Poseidon is just grand gestures and heavy handed imagery and Zolf has never been so glad for something to  _ not  _ happen and maybe, just maybe, Poseidon is the one proving his faith this time. 

_ Do you truly believe that you deserve to be alone?  _

Zolf isn’t alone, though, not completely. And if Poseidon can forgive him, maybe Sasha and Hamid will, someday. Maybe Hamid will write, and maybe Zolf will write back. Maybe Zolf will write first, clumsy and awkward and wanting, if only to tell Hamid that he’s doing a bit better. Maybe he’ll be doing a bit better sometime soon, and he can let Hamid know. 

Prague is about to go to hell, but Zolf Smith hasn’t been forsaken. 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!! comments and kudos are - as always - deeply, deeply appreciated. if you'd like to yell about rqg with me I am on tumblr @thoughtsbubble! if you want to cry in the best way possible please check out anything by @roswyrm (on here or on tumblr)! 
> 
> once again, thank you. :)


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